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The Second Generation

DAN CHERUBIN considers himself pretty lucky. Though his father died five years ago, he still has his mother, and his other mother.

Mr. Cherubin, a music librarian who lives in the East Village, is the gay son of a lesbian who lives with her companion, and he belongs to an unusual -- and, for some, unsettling -- kind of family.

''We're not your average TV family,'' Mr. Cherubin, 33, said.

He calls himself, and other gay children of gay parents, ''the second generation.'' For him, the experience has brought ''an appreciation for things that aren't necessarily the norm.'' For others, it has not always been so easy.

It was only a couple of decades ago that openly gay people started rearing children. Now some of those children are teen-agers and young adults who are realizing that they, too, are gay. In some cases, having a gay parent has made it easier for them. But there are also those who came out to seemingly heterosexual parents, only to have those parents later acknowledge their own homosexuality.

Parents who have had a difficult time because they are gay often worry that their gay children will also face hardships. The children sometimes anticipate their concern and find it hard to break the news about their own homosexuality. Outside the family, some gay children of gay parents say, they may be perceived as curiosities or aberrations. Sometimes they are swept into the political and scientific debate over whether homosexuals are born or made, and whether parents influence their children's sexual orientation.

Some on the political and religious right claim that homosexuality is a choice, that it can be taught or reversed and that it does not warrant legal protections. And some conservatives maintain that gay people should not rear children because the children will likely follow their parents' ''life style.'' In Florida and New Hampshire, it is illegal for gay people to adopt children.

But gay rights advocates have argued for years that homosexuality is genetic and unalterable, like race or ethnicity, and that gay people deserve legal protection against the discrimination that many face. They point out that numerous studies, in journals like Child Development and The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, have found that children reared by gay parents are no more likely to be gay than those brought up by heterosexual parents, and no more likely to have psychological problems.

Yet those who draw attention to the fact that both they and at least one of their parents are homosexual can make some other gay people uneasy.

Mr. Cherubin, who founded a group called Second Generation in 1991, said that when he approached other gay organizations for support, most were receptive but some ''were iffy.''

''They thought we were propagating stereotypes -- gay people recruiting kids,'' he said. ''Some wanted nothing to do with gay children, even if we're 30.''

Mr. Cherubin remembered handing out cards at one gay pride parade referring to ''gay and lesbian children of gay and lesbian parents.'' Some parents would look at the cards, ''become horrified and hand it back,'' he said. ''They said: 'Our kids are just like everyone else. They are not gay.' ''

And last year, when he spoke at a conference for gay parents at New York University, Mr. Cherubin said, a lesbian mother who had fought for custody of her two young children told him: ''Nothing personal, Dan, but you're my worst nightmare.''

''People are afraid of losing their kids,'' he said. ''It happens. And, of course, the sexuality of one's child is always an uncomfortable topic.''

But April Martin, 49, a lesbian mother who is a psychotherapist in Manhattan and the author of ''The Lesbian and Gay Parenting Handbook: Creating and Raising Our Families'' (Harper Perennial, 1993), said that among the many families with gay parents she knows, ''nobody's worried.'' She went on to say: ''When we're in our community and we feel safe, no one worries if their kids will be gay. We're curious. We're interested in fostering whatever it's going to be. We talk about it: 'I think this one might be. I think this one probably isn't.' ''

Terry Boggis, director of Center Kids, the family program of the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in the West Village, said: ''I hear gay people say, 'Why would I want my children to be gay?' and I think 'Ouch.' Of course we want an easier, smoother path for our children. But some protest too much. They're bending over backwards about how gay people really don't want their kids to be gay.''

Wayne Steinman, 48, the former president of the Gay and Lesbian Parents Coalition International, said ''society has imposed on the gay community a sense of homophobia, that somehow we'll make our children gay.''

''Unfortunately, some gay parents maintain those fears,'' said Mr. Steinman, who lives on Staten Island with his partner Sal Iacullo, 49, and the 10-year-old daughter they adopted as an infant, Hope Steinman-Iacullo. ''It's not a particular aversion to homosexuality, but they feel their kids' lives would be easier and less frustrating if they were straight. Personally, I say who better to raise gay kids than gay parents? We allow our children to express themselves and be themselves. And we've lived through the issues.''

If gay parents have reason to fear that their ability to rear children might be questioned, some of it comes from groups like the Family Research Council, a national organization based in Washington. Robert Knight, the council's director of cultural studies, said children ''need to model themselves after their own sex and to get clues about treating the opposite sex by viewing their opposite-sex parent.''

In households with gay parents, Mr. Knight said, ''Kids see reality through a distorted lens, a frankly abnormal acting-out of sexuality.'' These children, he said, are more likely to have a positive view of homosexuality, making it easier for them ''to develop homosexual orientations.''

''If their so-called parents are doing it, and they are the most important influence on children, then common sense tells us at least some of the children will try it out,'' Mr. Knight said.

But in 1995, the American Psychological Association published a report on gay parents, which was prepared by psychologists who specialized in families, youth and gay men and lesbians. Charlotte J. Patterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, who did the summary for the report, pointed out that though research on the subject was ''very new and relatively scarce'' and had limitations, there was no evidence that homosexuals ''are unfit to be parents or that psychosocial development among children of gay men or lesbians is compromised in any respect.''

Still, she said, gay families were often subjected to prejudice ''that turns judges, legislators, professionals and the public against them, frequently resulting in negative outcomes like loss of physical custody, restrictions on visitation and prohibition against adoption.'' And while courts have expressed concern that children of gay parents will become lesbian or gay, Dr. Patterson wrote, a ''great majority'' of the children describe themselves as heterosexual, and ''the data do not suggest elevated rates of homosexuality'' among such children.

''My question,'' Dr. Patterson said in an interview, ''would be how on earth would you make your child gay, even if you wanted to?''

A Disclosure to Mom In Freshman Year

Marc M., 28, knew he was gay ''since Day 1.'' And from the age of 10 or 11, he said, he suspected his mother might be, too. ''After all, she had a roommate and no other friends' moms had roommates,'' he said. ''I saw affection between them, but the relationship was never verbalized.''

Marc, a writer who lives in Chelsea, asked that his last name not be used, for several reasons: ''Is my mother out to her neighbors? No. Am I out to my grandma? No. Is my mother out to my father or brother? No, but they know about me.''

He grew up in Queens in a middle-class family. His parents divorced when he was 9, and he and his brother, who is four years older, lived with their father. They saw their mother, who lived with her female companion, on weekends.

Then, when Marc was 14, his father moved out and his mother moved in. ''There were always uncles and roommates and friends at the house,'' he said. Two uncles, his mother's brothers, were gay. Both died of AIDS.

Marc kept his homosexuality hidden for years. ''I wanted badly to tell people about me. But I couldn't. One uncle was already sick, and the other got sick as I was coming out. I desperately wanted to talk to him about being gay, but he was too sick.

''My greatest fear was coming out to my mom,'' he said. ''I could see she was gay, and I presumed what she went through -- the fact she couldn't tell her kids or the people she worked with. It made me feel like I failed her, that things aren't perfect.''

But during his freshman year in college, Marc decided to tell his mother. ''I said, 'I need to talk to you,' and started to pace around. She started crying. I said I was gay, and she said something like, 'I have tendencies also.' And I said, 'Tendencies, mom?' And she cried and said, 'I don't want you to go through what I went through, what my brothers went through, what my best friends go through.' ''

''I know what a hard life it is,'' Marc remembered his mother saying. ''If I could push a button to make you straight when you were born, you would have been straight.''

His mother, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, said: ''Society doesn't accept this life style, and he's going to hit some bumpy roads along the way. It would make it easier for him if he was straight the way the world is today, even though it's a little more acceptable than it was years ago.

''That's how I feel as a mother,'' she said. ''People have called him a freak and all kinds of names because he's gay and his mother is gay.''

Marc said his mother, who is single now, ''comes from a different generation, plain and simple.'' He went on: ''She didn't move to the Village or become some lefty lesbian hippie mom. She's a bookkeeper.''

''There's a weird dynamic, being gay and the kid of a gay parent,'' he said. ''If it's nurturing, and my mom nurtured me to be like her, it doesn't make sense, because then I should like women, right?''

'I Wasn't Going To Get Kicked Out'

Two years ago, Emily Martin-Alexander, 16, called home from boarding school. She had something to tell her parents, April Martin, an author and therapist, and Susan Alexander, 53, a children's librarian at a private school. Other kids, Emily said, were saying she was a lesbian.

Then, Dr. Martin said, she asked Emily what made her think she might be gay. After a long silence, Emily said she was smitten with a classmate. A female classmate.

For Emily, who said she had figured out her sexual orientation on her own the previous year, telling her mothers was relatively easy. ''I knew I wasn't going to get kicked out of the house,'' she said.

But there were other troubles. ''It was a tough year.'' Dr. Martin said. ''A lot of hard work went into discovering and consolidating her identity, even with gay parents, who you'd think would make it totally easy. Yet people were kind of taking that away from her.''

Emily said: ''I got the whole shebang because I'm a lesbian and because my moms are. A lot of it was just curiosity, but some people said, 'Well, your parents did this to you.' ''

''My parents didn't make me gay,'' she said. ''I did this all by myself.''

Dr. Martin said she saw being interviewed as the gay parent of a gay child as ''a coming out'' of sorts. ''I'm out there debating the religious right, and I don't bring up the issue of my daughter being a lesbian,'' she said, especially ''when people say 'you're going to make your kids gay,' and the best sound-bite response is the research shows that doesn't happen.''

For the next edition of her book for gay parents, she said, she may add a chapter on gay kids.

Dr. Martin, and Ms. Alexander, who did not want to be interviewed, each conceived a child through donor insemination. The family lives in Chelsea. ''Whatever they turned out would've been fine with us: both gay, both straight or any combination,'' Dr. Martin said of the children. Her son, Jesse, 13, is heterosexual, she said. ''He's being raised in a household with three lesbians and no male parent, and he's grown up straight.''

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When Brook Garrett, 33, a theatrical agent who lives in Greenwich Village, told his parents he was gay 11 years ago, they were going through a difficult divorce. But, he said: ''They were supportive and loving. Nobody was surprised.''

What he didn't expect was that he might be paving the way for them to acknowledge their own homosexuality. ''I became less the child and more the peer role model,'' he said. ''I needed to let them come out on their own terms. They did that for me.''

Brook Garrett grew up in what he called ''a classic post-Eisenhower family'' in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. His father, Larry, was a private-school teacher. His mother, Carole, was a nurse.

''In the early 60's, that's just what you did, got married and had kids,'' said Larry Garrett, who lives in Pittsburgh with his companion of five years. While he was married, he said, he had ''some inkling'' that he might be homosexual, but he never acted on it.

When Brook broke the news to him about being gay, he said, ''I came a proverbial hairbreadth away from saying, 'Well, son, so am I.' But I didn't, and I'm not sure why.''

Eventually, Brook Garrett said, he began to suspect his father was gay. ''Brook and his brother forced me to come out to them about five years ago,'' Larry Garrett said.

Carole Garrett, who lives in Philadelphia, said she had no idea that the man she had married might be gay. And she said it was several years after her son had made his announcement that she had became aware of her own homosexuality and was able to tell him.

''I come from a family that doesn't communicate well,'' she said, ''and these are sensitive issues.''

''Had I been from a less conservative background, I might have found out about and explored things more,'' Ms. Garrett said. ''But consciously I had no idea about myself in those days. I guess I should have, but I wasn't as socially aware back then.''

Like her ex-husband, Ms. Garrett said she had no qualms about Brook's being gay. ''I'm proud of him,'' she said. ''He loves his friends, he's successful. I wouldn't have him any other way.''

His father said: ''Mouths drop wide open when I tell people. But that's not very often.''

'Oh, My God, Dad's Gay'

Maria De la O's parents split up when she was 4 and living in San Diego. A year later, her father moved to San Francisco. She remembers her mother, who reared her, occasionally referring to her father as a ''queer,'' though as a child, Ms. De la O said, she didn't understand why.

When she was 14, she said, he told her ''how great it was'' to have been at the protests over the killing of Harvey Milk, the San Francisco politician who was gunned down in 1978 by a fellow member of the city's Board of Supervisors. ''And I thought, 'Oh, my God, dad's gay.' ''

Ms. De la O, 29, a journalist who lives in Brooklyn, considers herself bisexual but is living with a girlfriend. After realizing her father, Bill De Lao, was gay, she said, ''I thought, if he didn't know for a long time, then maybe I'm gay and don't know it.

''I asked myself: 'Am I attracted to these high-school girls? No? Good.' But then I fell in love with my best friend when I was 17.

''I didn't relish telling my mom,'' she continued. ''She didn't take my father's being gay well at all. It threw her for a loop and affected the rest of her life. And I wanted to make absolutely sure before dropping any bombs.''

So Ms. De la O didn't tell her mother. She went away to college, where she dated men and women before meeting her current girlfriend. ''I dropped hints to my mom, like my dad had done. So at a certain point she just assumed. She knew, and she still loved me to death.'' (Her mother was not available for comment.)

Her father also seemed to make assumptions. ''When I was 21, my dad and his boyfriend, Robert, invited me to Lake Tahoe for the weekend. They said, 'Bring someone, male or female.' I don't know if it was a trap or not. I think Robert was trying to open things up between me and my father. I invited my roommate, Cathy. We were just friends. When we got to Tahoe, my dad said: 'You girls will have to take twin beds, do you mind?' ''

Mr. De Lao said when he realized his daughter might be gay, he was taken aback ''for a few hours.'' He added: ''But then I said to myself, 'Gee, I'm grateful to have a good daughter, and it's great she turned out to be O.K.' By the next morning, I was fine with it.''

Ms. De la O said: ''Maybe it was something he'd gone through. But it was so different for me. Times have changed.'' She credits her father with helping her be more open. ''I'm a better person for it,'' she said.

Growing Up, Two Very Different Homes

Jamie Egan, 24, recently moved to the Upper West Side from Wisconsin, where he grew up in a small town just outside Madison.

''My mom came out to me when I was 14,'' he said. ''I had clues. I remember not being shocked. My parents were separated, partly because my mom fell in love with her friend.''

His ''other mom,'' as he calls her, moved in when he was 16.

At the time, he assumed he was heterosexual. But two years later, he had a boyfriend. ''The space was there to express what I needed to express, so coming out wasn't a problem,'' he said. ''I would even bring my boyfriend to the house.''

''My mom was thrilled when she found out,'' he said. ''That is, thrilled at first, and then a little apprehensive later.''

Mr. Egan's mother, a teacher, would speak only on condition of anonymity. ''It was a bonding thing for us,'' she said, ''but after I thought about it, it kind of scared me because it's O.K. for me, and I can handle it, but I don't want my kids to have to go through all the pain.

''I always wanted their life to be better than mine,'' she said. ''But it's a pretty good life. It's not always easy, but it's the path I needed to be on. and if that's what he needs to do, too, then that's cool.''

Mr. Egan said he had spoken with his father about his mother's homosexuality. But, he said, ''He doesn't know about me. He's not quite to that point where he can handle it.''

Mr. Egan grew up in two very different homes. ''In one was my mom and her partner, my biological brother and my younger sister and older brother from my other mom,'' he said. ''In a town of 2,000, it caused quite the controversy.'' In the other house was his father, in the same town but worlds away.

''It gave me a lot of perspective, which is a very positive thing,'' said Mr. Egan, an intern at the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network. He now considers himself bisexual. His biological brother, he said, is heterosexual.

Sometimes, he said, he gets flak about his family. People assume he must be gay because his mother is. ''But my moms didn't make me any more gay than my dad made me straight,'' he said. ''To say gay people make people gay is a ridiculous cliche.''

After a Confrontation, 'She Had to Tell Me'

Dan Cherubin grew up in what he described as a ''normal'' household on Staten Island, with a mother, a father, a sister and a brother.

When he was 16, Mr. Cherubin's mother, Margaret Cherubin, introduced him to a friend, Tina Fornale. ''Tina made no bones about being a lesbian, and she had lots of gay friends,'' Mr. Cherubin said. ''But I had no idea about my mom at first. I began to suspect when I was 18 and away at college.''

That year his parents split up. And that year he told them he was gay. ''They weren't shocked,'' he said. ''They took it like good liberal parents.''

But the divorce was nasty, and his parents' relationship was strained, Mr. Cherubin said. His mother began spending more time at Tina's house. ''Then she started going to Tina's every weekend,'' he said, ''so I really thought something was up.''

When Tina moved in with his mother, Mr. Cherubin said, ''I finally forced it out of her. She asked, 'How do you feel about Tina?' And I said, 'What do you mean?' And she said, 'You know what I mean!' And I said, very coyly, 'No mom, I don't.' So she had to tell me.''

His first reaction was anger, Mr. Cherubin said. He had faced his own difficulties coming to terms with his homosexuality.

''How could she watch me suffer and not tell me?'' he said. ''But I came to understand that she comes from a different era.''

Ms. Cherubin, who was married for 27 years, said she had a sense even then that she might be bisexual. ''But later I realized, no, I was gay,'' she said.

Mr. Cherubin's father eventually remarried, and his mother and Ms. Fornale have been together for 13 years. Both think of him, and his siblings, as their children.

And as for Mr. Cherubin's being gay, Ms. Cherubin said: ''I'm very proud of my son, and perfectly comfortable and proud of myself. I love the kid.''